Wednesday, Dec 13, 2017, 6:53 pm · By Saqib Bhatti

As a result of this bill becoming law, and the SALT deduction being eliminated, working families stand to see their federal taxes increase. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

The current tax debate in Congress is fundamentally a fight over whether most of us will sacrifice to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. The Republican tax bill that has already passed both houses of Congress and is now in conference committee is the latest manifestation of a long-term conservative goal to enact so called “tax reforms” that will further redistribute wealth upward.

One of the many ways the bill does this is by eliminating state and local tax (SALT) deductions. Not only will this change amount to a regressive redistribution of wealth—since it would effectively take money from all of us and give it to a small group of rich people—it will also be a handout to big banks and wealthy bondholders.

Friday, Dec 8, 2017, 5:11 pm · By Sarah Jaffe

Welcome to Interviews for Resistance. We’re now several months into the Trump administration, and activists have scored some important victories in those months. Yet there is always more to be done, and for many people, the question of where to focus and how to help remains. In this series, we talk with organizers, agitators and educators, not only about how to resist, but how to build a better world.

Tuesday, Dec 5, 2017, 5:05 pm · By Timna Axel

Chicago's march was one of dozens of rallies and events planned this week in California, Colorado, Louisiana, Montana, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan. (Matt McLoughlin)

Chicago—It’s an unseasonably warm December evening and a crowd of about 500 people, some wearing knitted pussy hats and recycled signs from previous rallies, are gathered at the plaza in front of the Chicago Board of Trade. Two days earlier the Senate passed its version of the GOP’s tax plan, which gives lavish tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

“Everyone I talk to in my church and in my seminary community is terrified of what this bill and other pieces of legislation mean for us,” says Samantha Nichols, a 24-year-old seminary student who attended the event.

Tuesday, Dec 5, 2017, 12:51 pm · By Shaun Richman

Full-length image of workers from various unions carrying signs protesting Waterman Repair Division on a street outside of company property in Maryland in 1935. (Photo by Harold M. Lambert/Lambert/Getty Images)

U.S. employers have never been particularly accepting of unions. Yes, there were a few decades after World War II when most employers engaged in a largely stable pattern of collective bargaining that recognized unions as junior partners in industry. Wage increases kept pace with gains in productivity, and union endorsements were courted by both parties. But, as heavily as that postwar labor relations compact features in the rosy rhetoric of union boosters who decry global capitalism and the modern GOP, the truth is that corporations have been periodically going to war against their workers far more often they’ve occasionally conceded their basic humanity.

On November 13, Marcus Vaughn filed a class-action lawsuit against his former employer. Vaughn, who’d worked in the Fremont, California factory for electric automaker Tesla, alleged that the manufacturing plant had become a “hotbed for racist behavior.” Employees and supervisors, he asserted, had routinely lobbed racial epithets at him and his fellow Black colleagues.

By this point we’ve all heard about the cartoonish immorality of the GOP tax plan—raising taxes on the working poor while cutting taxes for the super-rich.

But setting aside these moral considerations, the Republican tax reform package is also a catastrophe as economic policy. As designed, it will super-charge trends that have stalled growth and wages in the United States for the last four decades. Neither the House nor the Senate plan will do anything to spur investment and both will bolster a tax code that incentivizes short-term speculation and the squeezing of workers, supply chains and consumers.

Tuesday, Nov 21, 2017, 6:08 pm · By Michelle Chen

On November 20, farmworkers and their supporters marched through Manhattan to demand that Wendy's join the Fair Food Program of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. (Photo courtesy of CIW)

Ahead of the Thanksgiving feast, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) hit midtown Manhattan on Monday to face down the suits with chants of “Exploitation has got to go!” CIW was there to demand humane working conditions on their farms.

Tuesday, Nov 21, 2017, 3:39 pm · By Jeff Schuhrke

The tax reform bill passed by House Republicans on November 16 wouldn’t just slash taxes for corporations and billionaires, it would also dramatically increase the tax burden for graduate student workers by counting their tuition waivers—which they receive in exchange for their labor as teaching and research assistants—as taxable income.

Furthermore, by eliminating student loan interest rate deductions and the Lifetime Learning Credit, the House bill effectively makes graduate school financially out of reach for all but the wealthy.

Friday, Nov 17, 2017, 11:08 am · By Michael Arria

On January 16, 2017 in New York, N.Y., the Citywide Alliance Against Displacement held a rally at City Hall to demand Mayor de Blasio step down for promoting racist rezoning plans that target communities of color and to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.s legacy of ghting against racial and economic injustice all over the country. (Photo by Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In late September, activists staged actions in 45 cities to draw attention to predatory rent practices and vast cuts to Housing and Urban Development funding. “Renters Week of Action” was partially inspired by a report put out by the Right to the City Alliance (RTC) highlighting solutions to the problems tenants now face after the foreclosure crisis.